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Tom Monto

Montopedia blogs on electoral reform 2022

Updated: Nov 12, 2023

Articles on electoral reform on blogsite Montopedia


Produced by Tom Monto 2022


my blogs also listed/indexed on these blogs:




===================


In these blogs I point out


weaknesses of existing FPTP,


need for proportional representation in a democracy,


possible replacement electoral systems, and


my preference for STV (preferential voting in multi-member districts)


===========================


In particular, subjects covered by blogs include:


Weaknesses of FPTP


- 2019 Alberta election


- 2019 federal election


- Alberta NDP under-represented since its founding in 1961


- 2018 Ontario election


City of Edmonton electoral reform

-- ease of grouping wards to make multi-member districts

-- new single-member wards for 2021 will make little difference -- still many votes

will be wasted; minorities, not majorities, will be represented


History of Canadian governments changing electoral systems


Variety of electoral systems that Canadian governments have used


How do we bring about electoral reform?


Multi-member districts


(all forms of PR use multi-member districts/at-large elections. This alone has benefits whether you use party-list PR, STV or SNTV.)


- Multi-member districts are key to having a range of candidates and representative legislatures


Proportional representation (a family of systems including party-list pro-rep and STV)


Single Transferable Voting (STV)


STV - what it is and how to make it happen now!


- how it works


- Sandford Fleming's 1893 book Essays on the rectification of Parliament


Catherine Helen Spence



- history of use of STV in Canadian history


- Edmonton city elections 1923-1927


- Election of Edmonton MLAs 1924-1955


- 1926 Alberta provincial election


- Election of Edmonton and Calgary MLAs in 1948


- Alberta provincial elections 1924-1955


- Manitoba provincial elections 1920-1952


- Winnipeg city elections 1920-1960s and 1970s


- Canadian cities (20 Western Canadian cities used STV in 150 elections)


- Why was provincial STV dropped in Alberta and Manitoba?



Australia and STV Tasmania and STV Catherine Helen Spence 2020 Australian election


Alternative Voting (AV) (also known as Instant-Runoff Voting)


"Attack on Preferential Voting based on shaky grounds"


- history of use of Alternative Voting


- BC elections in 1952, 1953


- New York City has adopted AV as of 2019


- Aspen, Colorado used quasi-AV in 2009 -- "total schmozzle"


- Maine has adopted AV for elections of congressmen, STV affected 2018 outcome


- London, Ontario adopted AV, forced by Ontario Ford government to give up AV


Party-list pro-rep


-- Ranked ballots versus party-list pro-rep



Single Non Transferable Voting


* SNTV pretty proportional and much more so than FPTP


* SNTV allows diversity of candidates and representatives


==================


[Guide to keywords:


preferential voting = ranked ballots = single transferable votes = Alternative Voting or STV


Preferential Voting = Alternative Voting


Single Transferable Voting (STV) = PR-STV, STV-PR


FPTP = First Past The Post


========================



December 2022


MMDs

Canadian federal elections

Canadian electoral reform

FPTP


MMDs

Canadian federal elections

Scottish Highlands


STV mechanics effective votes vote trasfers

Where do votes go under STV and what portion are used to actually elect someone



BC false majorities


Old Books and information on PR and STV

Hoag and Hallett

John D. Hunt

Catherine Helen Spence

Proportional Representation Review

Proportional Representation Committee of Ontario, Effective Voting the Basis of Good Municipal Government (1898)

Robert Tyson

PR STV writers


STV

Surplus vote transfers: Gregory random whole vote



Edmonton city electoral reform

Edmonton elections

Edmonton city council

Municipal electoral reform

Premier Danielle Smith

Party labels

(see also

https://montopedia.wixsite.com/montopedia/post/party-labels-not-the-answer-to-our-election-woes-despite-what-premier-smith-seems-to-say)


Calgary city elections

Calgary STV

Calgary elections

Municipal electoral reform


MMDs

Ranked voting

STV


U.S. politics

U.S. elections

IRV

Electoral college



https://montopedia.wixsite.com/montopedia/post/party-labels-not-the-answer-to-our-election-woes-despite-what-premier-smith-seems-to-say

Edmonton city electoral reform

Edmonton elections

Edmonton city council

Municipal electoral reform

Premier Danielle Smith

Party labels


PR in Europe

Denmark

Danish elections


Municipal electoral reform

U.S. politics


BC PEI

Electoral reform referendums

Canadian electoral reform

Canadian elections


Canadian electoral reform

Canadian elections

Canadian federal elections


STV PR ranked voting

Canadian electoral reform

Canadian elections

Canadian federal elections

Trudeau


MMDs

STV PR ranked voting

Canadian electoral reform

Canadian elections

Canadian federal elections

Canadian history


MMDs

U.S. politics

U.S. elections

IRV

Electoral college

U.S. history


https://montopedia.wixsite.com/montopedia/post/upcoming-portland-vote-evokes-debate-on-stv

Portland Oregon

Municipal electoral reform

U.S. politics


2021 Canadian election

Federal election

Conservatives

False majorities

One-party sweeps


2021 Canadian election

Federal election

Conservatives

False majorities

One-party sweeps


New Zealand

MMP

STV


MMDs

districting


Instant-runoff voting

U.S. electoral reform


https://montopedia.wixsite.com/montopedia/post/when-referendums-saw-majority-in-favour-of-change-to-pr-and-from-pr

referendum

Canadian electoral reform

municipal electoral reform

Ottawa

Saskatoon

Regina



FPTP

false majorities

one-party sweeps

opposition shut-out

minority rule

and more




Sept 2022


Plurality block voting

MMDs

FPTP

Calgary 1921

Free verse!?!:

STV (and any form of PR) would give

majority of seats to majority of voters (whether in one party or in several)

and

give minority of the seats to each substantial minority.

allowing neighbourhod representation if it has numbers enough

and

general balance and fairness -

oh and most votes would be used to elect someone -

so there would be a large proportion of Effective Votes!


U.S. electoral reform


https://montopedia.wixsite.com/montopedia/post/on-pro-rep-comparing-cumulative-voting-stv-and-mmp

Cumulative voting

MMP

STV

FPTP

FPTP Ottawa Centre 2021 federal election

STV Edmonton Alberta provincial election 1944

the 20 percent not used under STV to elect someone includes …

Here's an article on Illinois use of Cumulative Voting from 1870 to 1980. But I am not sure the writer - Steven Hill - understands CV (for reasons I then give)


He says

"[STV] has all the benefits of cumulative voting but it also has other desirable features that prevent spoiler candidates, split votes and wasted votes that can sometimes happen with cumulative voting...."

Cumulative Voting was used to elect city boards in Toronto starting in 1903


PR defined in such as way as to include both STV and MMP and party-list PR


Denmark PR MMP MMD



Two question PR referendum would cover all the bases and let the people choose

Referendum based on two questions allowing local flexibility, consistent voting method



FPTP does not produce majority representation


July 2022

Two-member district used in Northern Territory election of Australian Senators

Australia Senate MMD multi-member district



Canadian elections 1867-1968

BC Alberta, Saskatchewan Manitoba Ontario Quebec NS NB PEI Newfoundland NWT Yukon

Halifax

MMD multi-member district

(This essay is presented in a three-blog series:



https://montopedia.wixsite.com/montopedia/post/canada-federally-and-in-the-provinces-and-territories-used-multi-member-districts-part-3


Most of Canada's MPs have been elected as the single member for their district, through First past the post. But until 1968 two or more MPs in every election were elected in multi-member riding. At one time 22 MPs were elected in multi-member ridings. These were in Halifax, Ottawa, Cape Breton, Hamilton, St. John, Victoria, Pictou and three ridings in PEI - Queen's, King's and Prince. They were elected through Block Voting.

At another time also the West Toronto riding also was an MMD.


MM districts used in the provincial or federal level from 1867 (or even pre-Confederation) right through to 1996, in some place or other in Canada.

Every province, plus two Territories - NWT and Yukon Territory - used MMDs at one point in time or another

MM districts used in Alberta 1909-1955 in some place or other in every election

MMDs


MMDS often used Block Voting, but other voting systems were tried as well:

The use of the contingent vote, ranked or preferential voting, the Ware formula, Bucklin vote, STV or Alternative Voting (IRV) began to emerge in the late 19th Century. (Challenges to the Voting System in Canada, p. 14-15


Plus Gove system

(See https://www.cs.jhu.edu/~jason/papers/eisner.istv91.pdf (un-dated [1990?]) for discussion of its potential use in South Africa.) under name “Indirect single transferable voting”


Phillips presents highlights of the 1910 Report of the Royal Commission Appointed to Enquire into Electoral Systems (U.K. government),

Canada provincial elections

(Quebec had MM districts before 1867; all other provinces did also before or after 1867 or in both periods:

Ontario NB NFLD NL NS PEI MN SK AB BC (NWT and Yukon as well)

Federal elections

Halifax 1758

Block Voting STV Limited Voting IRV/AV (single-winner majoritarian) Post election system (separate single-winner elections in MMD)


(note on Limited Voting:

I found this:

Phillips, Challenges to the Voting System, 1867-1974

available online:


says this on Limited Voting (p. 17)

"The system was applied in England to constituencies returning more than two members from 1867 to 1885.


[Footnote states "the LV was applied to 13 constituencies each returning three or four members and included Glasgow, Birmingham and the City of London... Spain and Portugal used the system in the early part of this century [20th Century?]"


Phillips: LV was debated in Canada pre-Conf

"It had been tabled in the debates on the Reform Bill to 1831 and 1832. Only a few years later the Gosford Commission investigating grievances affecting His Majesty's subjects, of Lower Canada considered a request that the limited vote be introduced.


One of the Commissioners stated in part:

'... [under FPTP] there will be no chance for the minority being permitted under the established and usual law of voting, to elect a representative, he is of the opinion that the most practical remedy would be to limit voter to one vote no mater how many representatives should have to be elected and that it would be advantageous to give each district which according to the census had pop. of 15,000 and less than 20,000 3 reps., and to those which had 20,000 and less than 35,000 four...'

...

It was deemed 'unwise for the Imperial Parliament to pursue a change in the Constitution.. especially with the certainty that the people could give it no welcome.'

However the Commissioners added that if the experiences of LV in other countries helped to get LV to find more favour in Canada, that position should be reviewed."

========================================



Nelson New Zealand

City reform city STV


1911 federal election

Canadian election

1911 election


Australia 2022 election

Instant-runoff voting Alternative Voting


Australia STV Alberta STV Manitoba STV New Zealand MMP

Mixed-Member Proportional


Edmonton STV Effective Votes

Canadian elections 1867-2021



SNTV STV Vanuatu SNTV

Threshold effective threshold

New Zealand MMP

Denmark MMP (party-list PR/party-list PR)

North Zealand

Block Voting

Cumulative Voting



STV MMP

Threshold DM

2019 NSW (Australia) election

2020 Scotland Assembly election 2020 Additional Member System



Extra time extra counting

STV





Ontario elections

2018 Ontario election result was dis-proportional in many ways

parties represented dis-proportionally

MPPs elected with only a minority of the vote in their districts.

Here's my blog on the subject:


2022 Ontario election

2022 Ontario election




Ontario election 2022

gross mis-representation


May-June 2022

Demonstration STV election


Catherine Helen Spence

Mr. Hare’s STV applied to Australia [sic]

A Plea for Pure Democracy (1861)


Municipal reform

Portland, Oregoncity elections


PM Trudeau

Federal elections



Alberta STV

Alberta elections

Manitoba elections

Harold Janzen

1920 1924

1955 1959


Catherine Helen Spence A Week in the future Hogarth’s Will

Berenstein Bears

Total Control

Rake


SNTV 2021 Canadian election

Edmonton

2020 Vanuatu


PR disadvantages of FPTP and Block Voting need for change

Piesse, "The Theory of the Quota in PR", Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania, 1912


Mexico parallel voting


Hungary parallel voting PR

scorpora (a semi-proportional "negative vote transfer" method).




Five main types of PR systems are used for election of members of national legislative assemblies in the world today


Party-list PR - based on overall party vote tallies


Mixed Member Proportional - district members, dis-proportionality is addressed by members elected due to party vote tallies.


Single Transferable Voting (STV) - district members that are party-balanced through single voting in multi-member districts


Parallel Voting - district members alongside members elected due to party vote tallies and perhaps alongside members elected in other ways as well.


Limited Voting - multi-member districts; voters cast more than one vote but fewer than seats being filled.


"General ticket" method entails election of a whole party slate, instead of candidate by candidate basis.

A couple Parallel Voting systems elect through the "general ticket" method.

One LV system elects by "general ticket" method.



Vancouver

Vancouver city election 2018

Block Voting

City elections


Europe PR 2022 European


Basic features of good PR


Number of members as cube root of population

2022 Wales

Alberta


Jordan SNTV STV

Jordan's 2020 election was held under an even more fair system, one much fairer than Canada's


STV PR Malta Edmonton FPTP

Winnipeg

Belgium

Ireland

Timeline


SNTV Vanuatu Pacifica


SNTV is currently used in a few countries - Puerto Rico, Libya and others.

Puerto Rico elects some of its members using SNTV.

Jordan used SNTV from 1993 to 2017 or so. (more on this below)

Vanuatu


Task Force on Canadian Unity Canadian elections 1979


April 2022


Double insult created by combination of rep by pop and FPTP

2021 Canadian election

1984 federal election one-party sweeps Alberta PEI

List of “merits” of proper PR


======================================


Female emancipation suffrage equal voting rights

Catherine Helen Spence

Australia

Women’s firsts in Australia and Canada

Stage prop

“Hare-Spence”

Lethbridge IRV STV


First past the post

1984 federal election

2022 federal election


PEI as multi-member district

MM district

2021 federal election

https://montopedia.wixsite.com/montopedia/post/pei-as-multi-member-riding


https://montopedia.wixsite.com/montopedia/post/multi-member-districts-best-way-to-go-even-in-a-mmp-system

Multi-member districts best way to go even in a MMP system

Dates when nine of ten provinces stopped using MM districts. (Quebec never did use them)


Kilgour - Conservative, Liberal, Independent - a man elected under FPTP

Edmonton Strathcona

Liberal MP Conservative MP Independent




Canada's First Past The Post elections not creating stability -- PR would

Ireland Malta Sweden Switzerland Italy

Swiss voting system

Canadian federal elections 1990-2022


South Africa - how does its PR work?

South Africa

MMP with province-wide MM districts and nation-wide top-up



Pilon on PR - question of democracy

Excerpt from

Dennis Pilon: B.C.’s voting system referendum—the politics of choosing

Georgia Straight, November 23rd, 2018

https://montopedia.wixsite.com/montopedia/post/pilon-on-pr-question-of-democracy



Ontario Farmers government tried for PR, 1919-1923

UFO Farmers post-WWI Ontario 1919 election 1923 Ontario election


Yukon electoral reform -- 2022

Territories



Catherine Helen Spence Part 4. Chapter V to VIII.

Excerpt from Sanford Fleming’s 1893 book


Also https://montopedia.wixsite.com/montopedia/post/fleming-essays-on-rectification-of-parliament-part-3-catherine-helen-spence




Electoral reform in established democracies since 1980

Russia

Italy

New Zealand

There have only been six major reforms between 1980 and 2010 in established democracies (New Zealand, Japan, France (twice) and Italy (twice)). In addition, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have adopted new electoral systems for their Parliaments

Victoria, Australia changed to STV in 2003 (see other blog for info on this)




March 2022

1926 Edmonton 1926

1926 Calgary 1926

Vote transfers

Effective Voting

Alberta STV


FVC Rural-urban PR

STV MMP Additional Member Proportional



Rep. by pop.



Canadian history

Lord Durham

Earl Grey

Lord Elgin


https://montopedia.wixsite.com/montopedia/post/stv-reflections-and-observations-in-its-defence

STV

Is STV slow, complicated…

Richard Cartwright



Bottom’s up STV vote transfers

Simple STV


Edward Blake

1874 Aurora speech

19th Century

Cumulative Voting Limited Voting STV

Canadian history


Vote transfers

STV


https://montopedia.wixsite.com/montopedia/post/cumulative-voting-in-toronto-1903

Cumulative voting

Canadian history Toronto


Indigenous governance

Native consensus



MMP STV


Examination of Five systems

STV SNTV

MMP MMP/STV MMP/SNTV

Canadian reform



SNTV Vanuatu Canada reform

STV

FPTP



February 2022

Majority rule

John D. Hunt

Elijah Harper Justin Trudeau



Municipal elections

IRV AV


MM districts multi-member districts

Canada Calgary Winnipeg STV

Malta

Federal elections in: Ontario Quebec Manitoba Alberta Saskatchewan BC PEI NB NS NFLD

Toronto 2014 as few as 18 percent enough to elect under FPTP



Edmonton Medicine Hat

1886


Halifax 1758 Block Voting MM district



==========================


2019 Canadian election


Climenhaga Alberta reform


Majority rule


https://montopedia.wixsite.com/montopedia/post/first-past-the-post-means-arbitrary-districts


Halifax 1758 (repeat of above?)


https://montopedia.wixsite.com/montopedia/post/sales-ad-for-pr

PR advertizement


Fairvote USA

U.S. reform


PEI MM districts


2019 Canadian election FPTP

Yellowhead Battle River


GTA 52 ridings 2019 2021

Toronto Canada election


FPTP


https://montopedia.wixsite.com/montopedia/post/nsw-2019-the-largest-stv-election-i-know-of

New South Wales Australia STV 2019


BC STV referendum Canadian history

Toronto

Victoria


Anniversaries


Canadian history Edmonton Calgary 1921



JANUARY 2022

https://montopedia.wixsite.com/montopedia/post/pr-the-wide-range-of-systems-suited-to-canada

STV SNTV MMP Rural-urban PR

(see five systems above)


FPTP Canada


Kingston, ON IRV (I hope not the Bucklin system!)


Colin Walmsley Ray Martin


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